Rataplan
by Omniac
Summary: A collection of miscellaneous Doctor Who one-shots: it isn't much now, but I'm planning to add to it at an erratic rate. New stories are added as the first chapter, I hope that you give it a read and enjoy!
1. Thrum

**Disclaimer: **By the power invested in me, I now pronounce myself unable to claim Doctor Who.

**Foreword:** This is a stepping stone to better writing, I swear it is.

**Much-abbreviated prologue: **Theta and Koschei interfere, and it sparks a civil war.

* * *

Koschei touches the back of his head, and his fingers come away wet with blood.

There's a voice saying something urgent, he can tell by its tone, but he can't hear over the _agony_ thrumming against his senses. It's too _much. _He should be _dead. _He would be dead, but...

"_-chei! KOSCHEI! We have to go, we have to leave, we can't stay here! Please, Koschei, get up, try to get up! I can't carry you..._." He feels so far away, floating lifelessly beneath still water, insensible to the hysterical sobs reaching out to touch him, to force his eyes open, to pull him to the surface -

With hands covered in blood, Theta finally drags him to his feet. He tries to focus on what's in front of him, to focus on something besides the pain, but the other's face is so emotionally battered and devoid of its usual childish naivete that he doesn't recognize him, and he can't bring himself to look at him again.

They run forwards through the short blue-green grass, its floral scent putrid with the tang of charred earth, until they reach a copse of trees, where the sounds of battle are far enough away that they slow to a stumbling walk. Theta spies a lonely body rotting in the bright sun, and the thought of what it had been is more than he can take; he leans heavily against a tree, scratching himself on its many foot-long spines without noticing as he heaves and retches until he is exhausted. Feeling purged and achingly empty, he wipes his mouth clean with one shaking sleeve and, when Koschei looks away, wipes his eyes with the other. They continue on their way, refusing to say anything, while one of them hardens himself against the devastation, and the other runs ahead, eager to leave it all behind.

By the time they are in sight of the stolen TARDIS, danger has found them again, and without hesitation, Theta grabs his hand in a fierce grip and yells for him to run as they break from the poor cover of sparse, spiny trees, pulling him into a reckless sprint towards safety. An excited desperation pushes everything from their minds except for what's in front of them, but Koschei hears a faint, curious buzzing sound like small, hard-shelled insects flying past; it's only when they reach the door of the police box and Theta is fumbling with the key that he realizes they had just dodged a volley of darts.

There is movement in the corner of his eye, and he turns to find one of the native creatures looming threateningly over them, its multifaceted eyes unreadable.

"Theta, hurry up," he whispers urgently; his head is pounding painfully now that there is nowhere left to run.

Then, several things happen at once: the alien emits a noise meant to alert every bloodthirsty insectoid within range of their location, so he casts about for something, _anything_ that he can use to shut it up - and grabs one of the incredibly sharp thorns from a nearby tree, determinedly bending it back and forth until it snaps off.

He acts quickly, before he can dwell on the idiocy of his actions, and rams the thorn with enough force to drive it through the beast's thin exoskeleton; and then he does it again, and again, and again, careful to avoid its flailing limbs while watching it with a kind of sick satisfaction that surprises him, but why should he feel guilty when that thing would have done much worse to them?

"Koschei!" He feels himself being pulled forcibly back by wiry arms wrapped around his middle. For a moment, he struggles against his restraints as if possessed, consumed by an unreasonable urge to _hurt_, _wound_, _mar_, _kill_ because of the pain and fear that they had suffered, because these violent, primitive animals shouldn't be allowed to spawn, because it was _so much fun_.

Suddenly, the enraged creature lashes out and, being unable to move quickly enough, the blow knocks them both back through the open door of the TARDIS; Theta's grip on him slips and he falls heavily, smacking his already wounded head hard against the floor. His vision dims and the hateful wrath slowly seeps from him like heat through ice as he watches Theta slam the door on the approaching hiss of clicking mandibles and lock it before turning to face him...

_I am so sorry_.

Koschei wakes up, lying on a suspended platform in an empty, sterile room, back on Gallifrey. Sitting up, he runs a hand over the healed skin on back of his head in remembered pain, and when he sees no sign of Theta, he dresses hastily and hurries out of the medical bay unimpeded. His apprehension grows as muscle memory takes him down an often-walked path, and when he reaches his destination, he understands why.

Because the TARDIS is gone, and guards are waiting for him.

He is still hopeful while he is tried for the crimes that they had committed, but when he is executed, Theta doesn't return. Nor does he come for the next trial, or the next.

Years pass, and he is a different man, lying in a cell where he is kept when he isn't needed. Then, there come four knocks on his prison door - the sound of _purpose_.

So, he answers. And when the Master leaves, he doesn't come back.


	2. An end, a beginning

**Disclaimer: **DO NOT WANT!

**Foreword: **I don't write often, but I wrote this and decided that if even one person reads it and likes it, that's reason enough to post it. There are sure to be consistency problems of all kinds, and there are religious themes, so that's a **!WARNING!**, but try to enjoy it, nonetheless. Also, the lack of grammar (in p.4 esp.) and exclusive pronoun usage are intentional.

**Summary: **The Master and Lucy revel in insanity at the end of everything.**  
**

* * *

"The End," he says, sing-songing the words like the happily-ever-after of his favorite child's story. "The universe is in its final throes, and we have bedside seats." He grins widely, studying her reaction, his fingers tapping expectantly against the blue police box.

She looks around at what he has given her, at the _nothingness_, and instinctively thinks that this is the worst place that he could have brought her. Out of "all of time and space," couldn't they have gone some place nicer, anywhere else but here? "This is..." her lips part slowly while she hesitates, not because she is afraid of upsetting him (no, never _her_ Harry), but because there is nothing she can say. He notices her falter, and he slowly tugs his fingers free from their gloves and the gloves from his hands. He touches her with his fingertips, tracing trails of heat along her neck, and he cups her petite jaw too tightly in his palm. His touch, so loving and filled with the promise of violence, is not Harry's touch, not her husband's, and cold panic slides down her spine.

"My darling wife?" he asks smoothly with vague concern in his voice, and there is meaning in that question that is lost on her. She focuses on the fingers burning through her skin, and her mind, clutching like a drowning child to her Protestant faith, screams that this man is the Devil. She is startled out of this blind, righteous fear by four light taps on her cheek, and she looks up into a face that she had once known as well as she knew her own. With the slow obedience of a scolded child, she studies the hard set of his jaw behind his kind smile, only now recognizing the mockery that has always been there. When she finally meets his eyes, the-

_ The universe is_ burning_, as All Things seethe with ambition and passion and need. They know this not because they see or hear or smell or taste or touch but because it is and always was and always will be, even when it will have never been. The fire is threads and the threads go through, through them around them entwining them entangling. _She's suffocating, and time _(that's what scorches, what writhes)_ is _hot_ and she is _freezing_. She has always been so, _they think_, frigid and fragile on her pedestal, but then he extends his hand, _eternity is pooling, infinite, in _his palm _and_ _now they are ablaze-an insignificant consciousness folds and snaps beneath the promise of forever. The heat coalesces, caresses _and she is breaking, mending, cracking, healing, _remade in the whir of shining blades lovingly lacerating wax-soft flesh and kindling bone. Steaming, red life eddies around their feet, shimmering with dying heat, and _she notices_ it is pulsing as if still rushing through bodies, but quicker, rippling with a rhythm as old as memory. They are foxtrotting, swirling, laughing to the soundtrack of human despair in 4/4 time. Intoxicated with death, their lips meet and _his mouth is feverishly warm and metallic, and he is all-consuming focus and brutal, bruising force. _She is kissing a black hole, and He will take everything and give nothing back, but_ she could only ever be what he makes her into. Appreciating this, she thanks him with her first, gasping breath for letting her believe that she had a choice. At this admission, he laughs, a _sound that touches time and refracts, and she can almost see the veins of the universe through which it flows_.

"Lucy," he says it like an invocation, like the proverbial Adam uttering the first, true name of his dearest possession._ His voice is all that she, scattered among the flickering, dying stars, will ever hear_. She looks at him with too-bright eyes and pink, parted lips, embers of fading starlight caught in the tracks of her ecstatic tears. With an amused look, he replaces his gloves to ward off the chill of space. "What would you say to having a vacation home here? Considering the condition of the housing market, it would be quite affordable," he muses with a smirk, his eyes glittering as he watches her without looking at her-she is his, and he has always known.

"Oh, Harry-" She stops and frowns, because that isn't him, that name obscured in blood and ash. So she asks, with all the shyness and sharp curiosity of a young girl speaking to the opposite sex, "Uhm, excuse me, but who are you, exactly?"

"I am the Master," She trembles as he brings her hand to his mouth in a gentleman's greeting, the civility of the gesture belied by his wicked smile. She nervously pats at her hair with her free hand. "But Harold Saxon will serve me, for now. I must keep up appearances, and I wouldn't want to give away too much, too soon," he says and touches a lingering finger to her lips, assuring her obedience. Then, with a playful grin, he offers his arm, and hers fits perfectly in his. "You'd be surprised to what extent some people will go to ruin the fun," he continues with mock-sorrow as they walk aimlessly across the alien soil. She watches his every move with undisguised awe, staring unblinkingly as _the universe, dying, falls at their feet, grasping desperately at the passing Lord's black coattails. In His wake, space rips open, and through this rift there is glistening metal and the faint refrain of Their Song, chorused by the last of humanity. The melodious cries of the bereaved clash with the whining buzz of death, and from the empyrean podium, He laughs in mankind's hopeful, upturned faces while they march to the beat of His drum. _She blinks rapidly until the darkness returns, and she stifles a sudden fit of giggles in his sleeve.

"Oh, _Master_, this is Heaven!" she exclaims, unable to restrain herself, and she laughs shrilly into the oppressive silence; she spins in place with arms outstretched, enraptured. Dizzy and breathless, she catches his arm with both hands and clings tightly to him, to the center of her reeling existence. Burying her face in the glorious warmth of his jacket, she looks up at him, and her breath catches-the intimate blackness is radiant compared to his eyes, and a murderous anticipation sweetens the curve of his lips. She shivers, even as a flush of pleasure stains her skin.

"Yes, it is," he says through a black grin of dazzlingly white teeth, and his gaze sweeps the desolate wasteland like so much refuse. Blades whir close by, but her eyes never leave his face. He glances down at her, _and she is being pulled in and apart, everything she is, circling the voracious, gaping mouth of the black hole._ "With all of the humans who are literally _dying_ to get here, it would be terribly unfair of us to keep it to ourselves, wouldn't you agree?" They had walked a wide loop and now came to a stop before the ubiquitous blue doors. "So I'll just bring a bit of Heaven to Earth," he says with his face turned to look inside of the open box, his face aglow like Christmas day, "and won't they be _grateful_!" Without his eyes to keep her, she turns her head to see the air behind her shiver, suddenly vacated. The blades cease momentarily before their musical humming starts again from inside the open door, and she begins singing along to what is, as best as she can make out, "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear." His voice joins her, singing the carol on a tune picked at random, and the jarring noise of their discordant voices echoes in the endless emptiness. With a polite gesture and a "ladies first," she walks into the entrance of the slaughterhouse, never looking back, and he shuts the door behind them.

* * *

_"Still through the cloven skies they come,_

_With peaceful wings unfurled;_

_And still their heavenly music floats_

_O'er all the weary world:_

_Above its sad and lowly plains_

_They bend on hovering wing,_

_And ever o'er its Babel sounds_

_The blessed angels sing."_


End file.
